We must not be surprised to find that even the highest works of God come to an end. Everything with an end, beginning, and origin, has the mark of its circumscribed nature in itself. The duration of a universe has, by the excellence of its construction, a permanence in itself, which, according to our ideas, comes near to an endless duration. Perhaps thousands, perhaps millions of centuries will not bring it to an end; but while the perishableness which adheres to the evanescent natures is always working for their destruction, so eternity contains within itself all possible periods, so as to bring at last by a gradual decay the moment of its departure.—_Kant._ PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. By C. E. BISHOP. IX.—THE SORROWFUL QUEEN. There was some perturbation in the C. L. S. Circle about “reading novels,” what time “Hypatia” was on the list. If the objectionable element in such reading is its improbability and contrariety to reason, those who are still opposed to it are warned not to read the life and adventures of Margaret of Anjou, some time queen of King Henry VI. It is not alone that her adventures were strange and her character remarkable, when truthfully described; she was the subject of romance writers of willful and, it is to be feared, malicious natures, only they called themselves “historians,” “chroniclers.” Their writings therefore are more objectionable than straight fiction, because they deliberately pervert truth and ask us to believe it. The best we can do with all the accounts of the Wars of the Roses is to weigh one story against another, and select that which pleases our reason or fancy better—just as a purchaser of novels does. Margaret was born of “poor but proud,” royal parents, and was, at the age of fourteen, celebrated all over Europe for beauty, accomplishments, courage, et cetera. I fancy she would have been a good, average “American girl” of the present day, so you can fancy the sensation she created at the court of her uncle, the King of France, and afterward at that of her husband. She was a fascinator. The Earl of Suffolk lost his judgment about her when he went to negotiate the marriage, and he made so bad a bargain that he lost his head for it afterward; it was cut off in a mysterious manner in a skiff in the middle of the Channel. It was a sorry match for Margaret, after all. Her husband was grandson of the insane Charles VI. of France. When the hereditary taint did not show in Henry and he had lucid intervals, he was a weak man indeed; spending most of his time counting his beads and meditating; a good, simple-hearted man, just the one who ought not to have been the husband of Margaret of Anjou and King of England at that troublous time.